The Weary Dunlop-Boonpong Exchange Fellowship

by Keith Flanagan

The Weary Dunlop-Boonpong Exchange Fellowship was created following the 'Weary Dunlop Tour" in 1985 when we retraced the journey we had taken with him from Java into the Thai jungle in 1943. During the tour, Weary gave the Anzac Day Address at the Kanchanaburi War Cemetery where some 7,000 of the 13,000 POWs who died on the railway are buried. He paid special tribute to those Thais who had helped us, particularly Boonpong Sirivejaphan, a shopkeeper and one-time Mayor of Kanchanaburi. Boonpong had risked torture and death to smuggle in money, medicines and the occasional radio battery with the vegetables he was contracted to supply to POW camps along the River Kwai.

He was a volunteer agent for the "V" organisation based on the Civilian Internees Camp (run by the Thais) in Bangkok. He also cashed cheques and lent money on prisoners' watches and jewellery, all redeemable after the war. Weary, who quoted poetry with the relish of "Rumpole of the Old Bailey" found Shakespeare's King Henry VI, had the words for such a man: "in thy face I see the map of honour, truth and loyalty". After the war, England had awarded Boonpong the George
Cross and the Dutch the Orange Nassau Cross. The English Far Eastern POW Association (FEPOW) were more practical: they gave him a tractor.

The Australian Government, prodded by Weary, could only come up with a small monetary grant.

Most on the 1985 tour hadn't heard of Boonpong. Only a select few had been in the know at the time. There had been no publicity in Australia except when Army Headquarters were going to court martial Captain "Roaring Reggie" Newton for having told The Bulletin columnist, David MacNicol, that the Australian Government refused to reimburse him for a cheque cashed by Boonpong to buy food and medicines. (The Red Cross later paid up. The Army dropped the court martial charge).

Weary hadn't forgotten. When at the end of the tour we wanted to create some sort of Weary Dunlop foundation he said "What about Boonpong?" We compromised with the Weary Dunlop-Boonpong Exchange Fellowship.

We launched it in Perth in 1986 at a dinner "in honour of two men, one and Australian the other a Thai, who represented what was finest in the human spirit in the face of adversity".

Because Weary's name was associated with it, the donations came rolling in, some from unusual sources. They went direct to the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons who had agreed to run the exchange in conjunction with the Royal College of Surgeons of Thailand.

After raising the first $50,000 we planned to hand over to others in the Eastern States. Queensland ex-POW Lang Fraser was about to take over when he found he had inoperable cancer and only weeks to live. Lang raised $1,100 from beyond the grave. His funeral notice asked for donations instead of flowers. The biggest contributor was a Japanese friend. Dick Fraser, another Queenslander but no relation to Lang, raised $5,000 by selling 50 straws of semen from his imported Brahmin bull. One of Weary's patients put in $10,000. A.G.Prentice, in Canberra, donated $1,000 in memory of three mates who died on the railway. In the UK, Colin "Kiwi" Lowndes, rugby "pocket Hercules" when Weary was playing for the Wallabies, made a substantial contribution. Eddie Saleeba, in Perth, donated $300 and then topped it up with another $200 when he realised it was probably Boonpong who had provided the iodoform which had saved his leg, eaten to the bone by tropical ulcers. Weary, himself, donated a percentage of the returns from his best-selling "War Diaries". Boonpong eventually won recognition
from the Australian Government when we suggested that the opening of the Helffire Pass POW Museum in 1998 would be an appropriate time. Prime Minister Howard had Boonpong's grandson on the dais with him and presented him with a Certificate of Appreciation for the "unrepayable debt" owed his grandfather. He also donated $50,000 to the Weary Dunlop Boonpong Exchange Fellowship.

It would have warmed Weary's heart. We were following once again where he had led. He had returned from the war with an appreciation of Asian culture and values, determined to help create friendly relations between Australia and its northern neighbours. Encouraged by the then Minister for Foreign Affairs, R.G.Casey (later Lord Casey) and Australia's "good neighbour" policy he had gone out under the Colombo Plan to work in Thailand, Sri Lanka and India. They all made him
an honorary member of their surgical colleges and association. India also made him an Honorary Doctor of Science of the Punjabi University and Thailand made him a Knight Grand Cross (1't Class) of the Most Noble Order of the Crown of Thailand. That is about as good as it gets in the Thai Honours List Weary led another Australian surgical team in South Vietnam to care for the civilian sick and wounded. In Australia he co-founded the Australian -Asian Association in
Victoria and was its president for 27 years. He was the "permanent president" of the Overseas Student Council.

For further information contact

Keith Flanagan

(Initial Exchange Executive Officer)

Tel/Fax (o8) 9299 6351

Email: quietlion@bigpond.com